Monday, February 16, 2015

I swear, life goes faster with two kids around. Little man turned one month old a couple of days ago.

I've been going to a breastfeeding support group about once a week, so fortunately I know what his weight is. On his one month birthday, he weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces. (His birth weight was 8lb 8oz). This weight is huge for me! It took his sister about a month to regain her birth weight, and then she gained very slowly. I wish I had known about the breastfeeding group with her because I truly think it was her latch that was affecting her milk transfer, which was affecting her weight gain. I'm blessed to be able to breastfeed my children.

Overall, his demeanor has been decent. He was very fussy the first week and a half, then I saw blood in his poop, so I cut out dairy. Since cutting out dairy, his demeanor has improved. However, it's hard to say if it was time or dairy that improved things since he only had the blood in the stool once. Joe and I went out to lunch today, so I decided today was the day I do a dairy challenge and ate cheese. We'll see how it goes. Even if it goes ok, I think I'll try to stick with limiting dairy but not stress about the "hidden dairy." Who am I kidding? I'm craving ice cream.

His favorite thing to do is eat! I mean, what else does a one month old do? Eat, sleep, poop.

For now, his eyes are still blue. I don't think they'll stay blue just because they're a different shade than what his sister's eyes were, plus statistically we shouldn't have two blue-eyed kids.

Baby sister is adjusting very well! The past week she acquired a cold and wanted to cuddle more and did regress to wanting to be carried more, but I think this will pass once she starts feeling better.

I want to try to start working out again. Last week I did a 15 minute post-natal workout. I think it's a good way to ease back in. It is going to be even harder now to find time with the two kids though. One day at a time. Plus I can't wait until it gets warmer!

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Well, my goal is going to be at least monthly updates now that WE HAD ANOTHER BABY! First,
I'll say I was spoiled by our first baby coming 2.5 weeks early. I ended up
having C3P0 at 39 weeks 6 days, but damn, it was a long pregnancy! I
started effacing at 34 weeks and I walked around 3.5-4 cm dilated for
over two weeks. From about 36 weeks on I had intermittent contractions,
which I never had with R2D2. They were such a tease, and honestly, not
the most comfortable experience. So, when I had my first "real"
contraction, it still felt like some of the contractions I had been
having off and on. The difference, these contractions stayed about
every five minutes, and quickly became even more frequent.

I
decided I wanted to continue to work until I delivered. Since I went
early with R2D2, after 38 weeks we stopped scheduling patients and I was
opening my schedule on a daily basis for sick patients. When I went to
work that Monday morning I had no clue I'd be leaving work to have a
baby! I saw my morning patients, I didn't feel any
different than my new normal back pain and pelvic pressure. While I was
eating lunch around 12:45 I felt a contraction. The contraction was
strong, but it didn't quite take my breath away and no stronger than some
I had the previous weeks. After I had a second contraction about 7-8
minutes later I decided I should pay more attention to them. By that
time my first afternoon patient was waiting for me. Well, by the end of
that visit, I knew this was the real deal, but I had no clue how fast
things would progress! I called Joe, told him where our hospital bag
was, asked him to pick me up, and then proceeded to see my next
patient. Yes, I saw my next patient. I mean, I had to wait for Joe to
pick me up anyway, so what if my contractions were 5 minutes apart by
that time? I warned the family so they understood my pauses during our
visit. Things snowballed after that, I think by the time I left
work, the contractions were about 3.5 minutes apart. I felt EVERY
SINGLE BUMP on the way to the hospital, which was 25 minutes away. By
the time I arrived at the hospital, my contractions were about 90
seconds apart and the pain was INTENSE. They quickly got me back to
triage and unfortunately I couldn't even lay still long enough to stay
on the monitors. My pain was best managed standing up and bending over
slightly. There were several times where the pain was so intense I
truly thought I was going to pass out (how I deal with pain). I
remember saying to Joe so many times, "this is so much worse than with
Bri." Well, while trying to manage the pain, wham, my water broke. I
looked down and saw it was brown. Being a pediatrician I knew this was
meconium and truly said, "Oh sh!t, meconium!"

After much
troubleshooting to get me into a comfortable position (laying on my back
made the contractions more intense) the doc was finally able to exam me
and ends up I was fully dilated and ready to push. No wonder I was having so
much pain! Once I heard that I looked at the resident doc and almost
begged her to let me deliver. Fortunately the nurse talked me off the
edge and put reason in my head to deliver down in L&D, especially since he was
meconium. Once I knew I was ready, I just wanted the pain to be over.
They immediately whisked me down to L&D, my OB had already started
prepping, they transferred me the delivery table, and I was ready to
roll. My OB quickly finished putting her gown on, I looked at her, said
I was ready, and started pushing. Joe and I can't quite remember if it
was 2 or 3 pushes, but he was here! Since he had pooped before
delivery, the NICU nurse practitioner was there. They took him immediately
over the the baby bed. He started crying, so they did some mild
suctioning, dried him off, and put him back on my chest to transition.

Well, unfortunately my labor story
doesn't end there. At about 10 minutes of life I realized C3P0 was
still quite blue for being 10 minutes old and he was making a sing-song
noise called grunting that often means the baby is having trouble
breathing. Oh, and we were still waiting for my placenta to detach.
Since I knew panic doesn't make things go any faster, I calmly looked at
my nurse and asked her to grab a pulse ox for the baby. My doctor gut was
right, his oxygen level was hovering in the high 60's to low 70's. Fortunately, the NICU
came back and did their thing. They gave him some oxygen, did more
deep suctioning, ultimately he needed a couple of breaths via face mask,
and had him pink before taking him to the NICU. In the mean time,
we're at over 20 minutes since delivery and my placenta wasn't budging.
So as I sat there waiting for the labor process to continue I just had to trust the NICU. I mean, I do, that's why I delivered at a hospital
with a NICU, but it was still hard. It's hard knowing how serious things
COULD be and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't go over to the bed and
see my child. I couldn't let my doctor instinct kick in and start
taking medical care of him. I couldn't do anything other than wince
when my OB massaged my placenta and hope I didn't need to go to the OR.
Ultimately I received some pain medicine through my muscle (still no IV) and my OB
manually retrieved my placenta. Finally, labor was over.

So, just to put things into perspective into how quick it was, my first contraction was at the earliest 12:45pm, I delivered at 3:36pm. I always said, I think I'd try labor without an epidural and if I couldn't handle it, I'd get one, well, this time around, I didn't have time to even consider any pain medication!

Ultimately, C3P0 went to the NICU and received 2 days of antibiotics. He was stable breathing on his own by the time he arrived to the NICU. He's now 3 weeks old and we're all doing well. Soon enough I'll be doing his one month update!